Neurodivergent Therapy in Santa Monica, CA:
Anxiety, ADHD, Autism, OCD and OCPD
In person and online therapy in Santa Monica, California.
You are not too much. You are not too sensitive, too scattered, too rigid, or too anxious. You are a person whose mind works differently — and you deserve support that actually understands that.
If you’ve found your way to this page, you already know something feels harder for you than it seems to for other people. Maybe you’ve spent years wondering why simple things — getting through the day, finishing a task, sitting in a crowded room, letting go of an intrusive thought — take so much more out of you than they seem to take out of everyone else. Maybe you’ve been told to relax, to focus, to just be more social, to stop worrying so much, to loosen up. And maybe none of that advice has ever actually helped, because it was never designed for a mind like yours.
You might have tried to push through on sheer willpower, telling yourself that trying harder would finally make things click into place. But willpower was never the missing ingredient. What’s been missing is support, education, and skills that actually work for you.
I offer individual therapy for anxiety, ADHD, Autism, OCD, and OCPD in Santa Monica, CA — and greater Los Angeles, CA for people who are exhausted by trying to function in a world that wasn’t built around how their mind actually works. This page walks through some of the most common struggles I see in my practice, and how I help.
Common Pain Points for Neurodivergent Individuals
How you feel, underneath it all. There’s a hum of anxiety that never fully turns off — a low-grade dread that something’s about to go wrong, that you’ve forgotten something important, that you’re not doing enough, being enough, or keeping up. For some, that anxiety spikes into panic, showing up as a racing heart, a tight chest, or a wave of dread that hits without warning. For others, it shows up as intrusive thoughts that loop endlessly, refusing to be reasoned away no matter how many times you try to logic your way out of them. For others still, it’s a persistent sense of falling short — of being “too much” in some ways and “not enough” in others — a quiet ache of self-doubt that colors how you see yourself entirely, coloring every interaction with the fear that you’re being judged, misunderstood, or found lacking.
There can also be a deep, bone-tired exhaustion that comes from constantly managing your internal world — monitoring your thoughts, second-guessing your reactions, bracing for the next wave of overwhelm. Underneath the anxiety, the racing thoughts, the compulsions, or the rigid need for things to be right, there’s often the same exhausted question: why is this so hard for me, when it doesn’t seem this hard for anyone else?
How you get things done — or don’t. Tasks that should be simple can feel monumental. Starting your day, cleaning your space, replying to an email, tackling a work project — these things sit on your to-do list, staring back at you, while you feel frozen, unable to begin, no matter how many times you tell yourself to just do it. For those with ADHD, it’s task paralysis and forgotten deadlines. For those with OCD, it’s compulsions and checking rituals that eat up hours you didn’t plan to lose — rereading, rechecking, restarting — until entire chunks of your day disappear. For those with OCPD, it’s the exhausting need for everything to be done exactly right, which can make even small tasks stretch on endlessly, as “good enough” never quite feels good enough. For those with anxiety, it’s the fear of doing something wrong that keeps you stuck before you even start. Whatever the root cause, the result often feels the same: falling behind, and then feeling worse about yourself for falling behind — a cycle that feeds on itself.
How you work and concentrate. Focus can feel like something you have to fight for — every meeting, every task, every deadline requiring more effort than it should. Maybe your mind wanders uncontrollably. Maybe intrusive thoughts hijack your attention at the worst possible moments. Maybe your anxiety about performing well actually makes it harder to perform at all, creating a frustrating loop where fear of failure becomes the very thing standing in the way of success. Maybe your need for precision means projects take far longer than anyone expects, leaving you feeling like you’re always behind, always catching up, never quite meeting your own impossible bar. And often, on top of the struggle itself, there’s the sting of feedback from others — being told you’re inconsistent, too intense, too anxious, too particular — feedback that never accounts for what it actually takes for you to function in the first place.
How you relate to others. Relationships can feel like they take more out of you than they give back — not because you don’t care, but because connection requires a kind of emotional and mental bandwidth that’s already stretched thin. Maybe your partner feels like they’re constantly picking up your slack, and the resentment between you keeps building. Maybe social settings leave you overstimulated and depleted, so you cancel plans and then feel guilty for canceling. Maybe you feel deeply misunderstood — like people see your anxiety, your rigidity, your intensity, or your quietness, but not the person underneath it, the one who wants closeness just as much as anyone else. Maybe you get frustrated when others don’t do things fairly or correctly, and that frustration creates friction you don’t know how to smooth over. Maybe friendships have quietly faded, not from a lack of care, but because the mental effort of reaching out took more than you had left to give. Whatever the shape it takes, the underlying feeling is often the same: a loneliness that persists even when you’re not alone.
If any part of this feels familiar, please hear this: none of this makes you broken. It means your nervous system, your attention, your emotional processing, or your need for certainty and control works differently than what the world around you assumes is “normal.” That difference can be worked with. It doesn’t have to run your life.
How I Help As a Neurodivergent Therapist in Santa Monica, California
As a therapist specializing in anxiety, ADHD, Autism, OCD, and OCPD, I don’t offer generic advice to “just relax” or “try harder.” I offer specific, evidence-based tools tailored to how your mind actually works — so that therapy gives you real, lasting relief, not just temporary comfort.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT gives you concrete skills for managing overwhelming emotions in the moment — the panic, the shutdown, the flooding that makes everything feel unmanageable. You’ll learn how to tolerate distress without being consumed by it, how to regulate intense emotional reactions, and how to communicate more effectively in relationships instead of shutting down or lashing out. These are skills you can use in real time, in real situations — not just insight, but action.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
ERP is the gold-standard treatment for OCD, and it’s central to how I help clients break free from the exhausting cycle of intrusive thoughts and compulsions. Rather than avoiding your fears or continuing to perform rituals that offer only temporary relief, ERP helps you gradually and safely face the thoughts and situations that trigger anxiety — teaching your brain that you can tolerate the discomfort without needing the compulsion to make it go away. Over time, this reduces both the frequency and intensity of intrusive thoughts and the urge to respond to them.
Radically Open DBT (RO DBT)
RO DBT is designed specifically for people who tend toward over-control — a strong need for things to be done correctly, high personal standards, and rigidity that can create distance in relationships, especially common in OCPD and in some presentations of anxiety and autism. This approach helps build flexibility, openness, and social connection, while still honoring your genuine values around fairness, precision, and doing things well. It’s not about lowering your standards — it’s about reducing the isolation and rigidity that can come with holding them so tightly.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT helps you build a new relationship with anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt — instead of fighting them or trying to eliminate them completely. We’ll clarify what actually matters to you, separate from fear, obligation, or old feedback you’ve internalized, and work on taking meaningful action even when anxious or uncertain thoughts are present. ACT is especially powerful for building a life that feels aligned with your real values, rather than one shaped entirely around avoidance or control.
Together, these approaches allow us to work on multiple levels at once — regulating your nervous system, reducing anxiety and compulsions, building executive functioning and social flexibility, and reconnecting you to a life that feels genuinely yours.
What This Can Look Like for You
Over time, clients I work with often find that:
- The constant hum of anxiety softens, replaced by a greater sense of calm and control.
- Intrusive thoughts lose their grip, and compulsions no longer dictate the shape of the day.
- Tasks feel more approachable, with real strategies for starting, organizing, and following through.
- Relationships feel more balanced, present, and fulfilling, with less resentment and more genuine connection.
- Rigidity softens into flexibility, without losing the values and standards that matter to you.
- Focus and concentration improve, as the internal noise quiets down.
- That persistent feeling of “not good enough” begins to loosen its grip, replaced by a steadier, more compassionate relationship with yourself.